Born in Qamishli in 1957, Assyrian Christian Suleiman Yousef graduated from the University of Damascus with a degree in social and philosophical sciences. Widely published in Arabic-language newspapers and journals, he has for years researched the role of minorities in the Middle East and the multifaceted forms of oppression they endure. He often focuses on Assyrian Christians.

In more than four years of civil war in Syria, Christians have been attacked several times by Islamic State. Assyrian Christians account for around 30,000 of the total 1.2 million members of the their faith in Syria and live mostly in the Hassakeh region in northeast Syria, especially Qamishli and Tel Tamer.

Close to the congested traffic of the Jordanian capital of Amman, a young Somali boy rides his skateboard with confidence. A little girl swerves back and forth beside him. Just a few steps away, two more kids vie for halfpipe priority, while another does an ollie, hanging in the air, his deck seemingly glued to his sneakers.

Welcome to 7Hills, the first and only community-supported, crowd-funded skatepark in Jordan.

New research: high levels of depression and PTSD among Iranian journalists

Arrests, torture, intimidation and threats are a part of everyday life for many journalists working in Iran. And it has deep psychological effects: Iranian journalists suffer high levels of trauma, depression and PTSD because of their work, according to new research.

“The part that surprised me about the results were the high levels of stress that the Iranian journalists confront,” explains Dr. Anthony Feinstein, a professor of psychiatry at University of Toronto, who has authored a number of groundbreaking studies on PTSD among frontline journalists.